The latest of Colleen Hoover’s upcoming book adaptations is almost here, as Regretting You is set to premiere on the 2025 movie schedule this weekend. Since the story between Allison Williams and Dave Franco’s characters spans 17 years, the actors got the chance to play teenagers, and it was quite the journey for Franco in particular.
When CinemaBlend spoke to McKenna Grace about filming Regretting You, she recalled the time she stumbled on one of Franco’s early looks. In her words:
So they were trying to figure out all the make up and stuff for them playing the younger versions of the characters. And there was one day that I was on set, and I think I had a scene where I was sleeping or crying or something, and I was standing there kind of just like out of it. And all of a sudden I see somebody run by in a little white tank top and blonde hair. I was like, ‘Whose teenage son is on set?’ And they run past me, and I’m like ‘That’s Dave Franco.’
In the new movie, Dave Franco plays Jonah, who was a childhood best friend of Allison Williams’ Morgan Grant. He has also recently gotten back together with her sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald) and had a baby with her. When Jenny and Morgan’s husband Chris (Scott Eastwood) get into a car accident together, and their partners learn they’d been in a long-term affair together, Morgan and Jonah start to explore their former feelings for each other.
Along with it revolving around Morgan and Jonah’s relationship following their partners’ deaths, it also focuses on Morgan’s daughter Clara (Grace) as she falls in love for the first time with one of her schoolmates, Miller (Mason Thames), whilst dealing with the emotions of her father’s passing.
To really understand Morgan and Jonah’s story, we get flashbacks of their times as teens, and Williams and Franco play them both in the past and present. As Grace continued in our interview:
I’m like ‘Oh my god.’ It was like a jump scare. And it was like the first version of the wig that he’s still so embarrassed of that you can’t find a photo of it anywhere. He, like, buried this wig. Oh, it was ridiculous. But no, that was so funny. I laugh every time I watch it. I’m like ‘Oh my god, it’s them.’
CinemaBlend then talked to Franco about Grace’s comments, and he shared more context as to why he was wearing a hilarious blonde wig before going for a more understated look in the flashback sequences. In his words during our exclusive conversation:
[It] was supposed to be kind of based on how I looked in my early 20s where I had this kind of, it was my first headshot, and it’s this really incredible long swoopy thing going on. And the wig – everyone had very good intentions. But as the process was happening, I was like, ‘Oh, this isn’t working.’
Hey, it was worth a try, right? Many of us had some pretty hilarious hairstyles in high school, and it’s fun to highlight that when looking back at a character’s teen years.
However, as someone who’s seen the movie and knows the flashbacks are not comedic, it makes sense why Franco didn’t end up in a blonde wig. As the Together actor continued:
It was one of the first days of filming, and I remember having to do this long walk through the set past all the crew, past all the cast to show our director, ‘What do you think of this ridiculous wig’. And, he literally laughed in my face. And then I had to do the walk back to have them rework the wig, did the walk again with an even worse wig.
There are no shots of Dave Franco or Allison Williams as teens in the Regretting You trailer, so you’ll just have to wait and see. The movie is based on one of Colleen Hoover’s bestsellers that was published back in 2019.
Regretting You is the second Colleen Hoover adaptation after last year’s It Ends With Us, which ended up having a controversial release regarding what happened behind the scenes. There’s another one on the way next year with Reminders Of Him coming out next with Maika Monroe, Tyriq Withers and Lauren Graham. You can see Regretting You in theaters this Friday, October 25.